This blog is about thinking of things past, present and future in testing. As much as I'd like to see clearly, my crystal ball is quite dim. Learning is essential and this is my tool for that.
A sister blog in Finnish: http://testauskirja.blogspot.com

Saturday, July 22, 2017

A Team Member with Testing Emphasis

Browsing Twitter, I came across a thought-provoking tweet:

Oh, I'm no tester. I'm a dev who loves testers cos of how I can't test. I can check my code is working, but I can't tell when it's broken.

Liz Keogh is amazing in more ways that I can start explaining, and in my book she is a programmer who is decent (good even) at testing. And she understands there's still more - the blind spots she needs someone else for. Someone else who thinks deeply and inquisitively. Someone else who explores without the blind spots she has developed while creating the code to work the way it's supposed to.

Liz is what I would call a "team member with programming emphasis". When asked to identify herself, no matter how much she tests, she will identify as a programmer. But she is also a tester. And many other things.

Personally I've identified as a "team member with a testing emphasis". That has been a long growth from understanding why would someone like Ken Schwaber years and years ago suggest to my manager that I - who want to be a tester - should be fired. Over thinking about it, I've come to the conclusion that this is one of the ways to emphasize two things:

We are all developers - programmers, testers and many others

We need to work also outside the focus silos when necessary or beneficial

For years, I did not care so much for programming so I found a way to call myself that I was more comfortable with than a "developer" which still is loaded heavily on programming. I became a self-appointed team member with a testing emphasis.

This works still, as I've grown more outside my tester box and taken on programmer tasks. It means that while I code (even extensively, even production code not just test code) the tester in me never leaves. Just like the programmer in Liz never leaves.

Liz can be a brilliant tester she is in addition. And I can be a brilliant programmer I intend to be. And yet she can still be the programmer, and I can still be the tester. 20+ years of learning allows growth outside the boxes. But it's still good to remember how we got here.

If software industry doubles every five years, half of us have less than five years of experience. Perhaps it makes sense to learn a good foundation, starting from different angles and build on it.

Individuals make teams. And teams are stronger with diversity of skills and viewpoints.